How to Marry a Marble Marquis(26)
You don’t need to sit here feeling sorry for yourself. She’s just another pretty, untitled woman, and you’ve had plenty of chits just like her in the past. You’re not beholden to anyone. There was a pleasure house nearby, one he had visited before. It was not a brothel, but a true den of dereliction, a house where landed gentry and titled nobles alike came to slake their thirst for depravity in a shared space with each other. No names, no judgment, just mindless fucking, which was all he needed right now was to wipe his mind of the unacceptable softness the assignation with her had brought about. And if you leave quickly, you won’t give yourself an opportunity to change your mind.
It did not take him long to arrive at the white-gabled home. Inside, there was a sea of flesh, bodies writhing everywhere he turned. A young woman he knew to be the daughter of a baronet was on her knees before a thick-set orc, a line of drool connecting her mouth to the tip of his cock every time he pulled out to give her a breath, while behind her, a human looking man pumped away, eyes squeezed shut.
There was little challenge in finding a partner who appealed to his sensibilities. Silas moved the woman’s hand over the bulge of his clothed erection, pushing her fingers in a way that made the movement feel clumsy and unpracticed, the way hers had felt, but as soon as he let go of her wrist, the stranger’s grip was sure and proficient, her hand tight as she undid the front of his trousers, drawing his stiffened shaft out.
She suckled on his cock tip and squeezed his knot, her hands moving one over the other, from root to tip. It was pleasurable, but it wasn’t at all what he wanted. She squeezed his sac and massaged his knot as she took his cock down her throat, his fingers tight in her hair and his wings stretching open, but it wasn’t what he wanted. He came with a choked groan, balls tight and knot pulsing, but it wasn’t at all what he wanted. Normally, he would have stayed for another hour or two after his first spill, enjoying himself with a bevy of beautiful women of various species, but that night he only felt numb and quickly took his leave.
Once home, Silas returned to the empty bedroom they had occupied, staring at the rumpled coverlet, his nose still able to pick out a soft whisper of lilac in the air. The scream that ripped from his throat was primal, the closest he had ever sounded to his nearly feral ancestors, and the credenza to his right paid the price for his sudden, incomprehensible rage. The fine wood splintered against the wall where he flung it, the chaise following it.
He needed to get out, to get away, to see the sky and the moon and breathe the icy night air, needed to get away from the feeling that was clawing at his chest. He would return to Basingstone. It was too late to reach the manor that night, but if he took wing and did not wait for his carriage and horses, he could cover a good bit of ground before dawn. He would ensure he was safely tucked away on some village church rooftop before daybreak and then complete the journey the following evening.
He would leave that night, leave right now, and put this evening behind him, this evening and the way she’d felt in his arms, the unrestrained sound of her laughter, and the maddening, intoxicating smell of her far behind him. Back to Basingstone, where Eleanor Eastwick was unable to follow.
“And if I have to hear one more bloody word about it, I’ll set fire to the whole thrice-damned countryside myself!” His shout rattled the windows in their casements, making the candles at the edge of the room waver. Silas paced behind his desk, fury and aggravation practically radiating out of his long, pointed ears. “Do I make myself clear, Kestin?”
Before him, the mothman stood unaffected. Bored, even. Silas flared his nostrils and gnashed his teeth, fists balled at his sides, but his steward only sniffed.
“Crystal clear, my lord.”
His fingers trembled at the brandy decanter once the steward had taken his leave. A cut crystal glass, three fingers of the amber liquid, a memory flash of the port he’d shared in her shabby but cozy library. He made a noise of frustration in his throat, furious at the unloyal treachery of his own mind. Silas had been tense and on edge since he’d arrived a day earlier, snapping at anyone unlucky enough to cross his path, and Eleanor Eastwick was solely to blame.
He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, saying yes to this mad plan in the first place. He was not a matchmaker, was no marriage broker. Marriage was the last thing in the world he wanted. What would he even know about the bloody subject?! Efraim Ellingboe had placed his trust in the wrong gargoyle, and it would have been smarter to simply say no from the start. At the very least, he reminded himself, he ought to call the whole thing off with the girl before they progressed any further, as quickly as possible, let her know he’d offered as much assistance as he was able, and wish her well.
Silas had never considered himself to be possessed of an extraordinary intelligence. With each day that passed, each day that she remained in his purview, he thought, throwing back the brandy as if it were some back alley pot shop brew and not a fine varietal, the supposition became a certainty.
His skin itched, feeling snug around his bones as if he’d gone to bed wet, shrinking up in the sun. His mind was a tangled mess of frustration and desire, annoyance and irritability, and he found himself drifting from pastime to pursuit to profession with little care or cognizance of anything around him. His temper was short, his patience in short supply, and seemingly worst of all, his cock was an aching agony, stiffening in the slightest breeze every time his nose caught the scent of the freshly bloomed lilacs around the moon chapel. It made no matter how often he emptied it — jerking himself in a mad frenzy until he seized, spilling like a green boy, or else, making good use of Lady Derrybrook’s firm grip and willing mouth, fucking dairymaids and a duke’s daughter, trying and failing every day to purge his loins of the hot, hard desire they’d developed for Eleanor Eastwick, but it was no use. His knot pulsed in a cadence that seemed to echo her name and hers alone.